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Hey, listeners. We're asking for your help. Do you have any idea what the Italian means that is being spoken in this scene? It's from the 1980 movie "Fatso," starting Dom DeLuise and Anne Bancroft. We have a caller who mentioned this scene and we'd love to be able to give her an answer.
They are playing Italian-Americans, so the language could be a dialect or Americanized version of Italian -- something spoken by the second generation to live in the US -- rather than straight schoolbook Italian.
What? No, Johny says something like /'kVma 'ki@ 'putS@nV Ska'ta:dV/ (or, if you prefer, come-a KEY-a POOCH-en-a shkah-TAA-duh). What she says when finding the keys is just "What the hell is this?", followed by "These are the keys to your /'skaS@n 'va~/ (SCOSH-n VAHN, only with the French 'n' at the end), and finally "Well where the hell is Dom?".
Well, just before she asks that, the other guy asks "Hey, Charl—ain't these the keys to your /skaS/?" When Charl answers in the affirmative, she repeats the question: "These are the keys to your /skaS@n va~/?" So I'm guessing that last syllable might be meant as "van", and "SKOSH" or "SKOSH-n" is some sort of make or model.
Those sure aren't any Italian accents I recognize, though. Maybe there's a different version of it in the far south, or maybe they're supposed to be second-generation Italians with heavily Brooklynized accents (which may have a lot of Sicilian in it). My favorite theories die hard.
I came across this - Scash-a-bang (or Scash): A beat up old, decrepit car on its last legs. If you remember in "Fatso" when Anne Bancroft sends Dom DeLuise out for Chinese food she tosses him the keys and says "Here, take the scash."
(http://www.lampos.com/brooklyn.htm)
Then I looked up the Italian word for wreck - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scassare
Looks like that could be the source.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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